Minecraft 1.6 News: Jeb presents the new horse mob!

Minecraft 1.6 is coming soon, and we all know what that means… tons of sneak peeks from Jeb and Dinnerbone on Twitter, right? WRONG. It’s Instagram now. Nevertheless, we’ve got some exciting news coming your way since Jeb posted the first picture of the new horse mob – the one you see at the top of the article. Read on for more details and the mandatory speculation.

Along with the vignette covered, filtered Instagram pic, we’ve got some indirect news about the patch.

First of all, Jeb called it the “main 1.6 feature“, so I wouldn’t count on the Mod API making it’s debut. This isn’t really news since the thing has been stuck in development for a while now. This also means that it won’t be another Adventure Update or anything like that since they’re marketing a new mob as the main feature. Expect a lot of bugfixes and probably some new items.

There was also a public “big thanks” given to the famous DrZhark, the modder that created Mo’ Creatures. This doesn’t really confirm anything, but since the mob in the picture looks exactly like DrZhark’s horse mobs in the mod, it’s almost certain they’re borrowing features from the mod. Here’s a quick recap of how horses work in Mo’ Creatures, taken directly from our Mo’ Creatures Guide:

Horses are animals that spawn in most areas of the world. There are 44 different kinds, a lot of which are secret, have to be bred and don’t spawn in the wild. Taming a horse with an apple, hay or sugar, and putting a saddle on it, will allow you ride it. Right-clicking mounts the horse, crouching dismounts. Different horses are faster, and you can make them faster by feeding them. Breeding horses is one of the more complicated systems in the mod, but it’s rewarding to learn since you can obtain all kinds of cool and fast secret horses. This chart explains it nicely, but it only scratches the surface. You can craft armor and bags for horses as well.

Again, this isn’t confirmed, but it’s looking likely horses will be very similar to this. Here’s a picture of how Mo’ Creatures horses look for comparison:

I’m personally looking forward to this since Minecraft has desperately needed a horse mob ever since the Adventure Update, so this is very welcome. People are already bursting with excitement on the forums and on Reddit, and I reckon we’ll see more emphasis on exploration in this update now that travel to uncharted lands (as opposed to oceans for boats) is easier.

There is no confirmed release date for 1.6 as of yet, but stay tuned for more information as it appears. There have been no snapshots for 1.6 yet, so there should be plenty of new information as soon as the first one releases.

What feature do you want to see in Minecraft 1.6? Are you looking forward to the horses in Minecraft 1.6? Sound off in the comment section below.